They have a customer for life now. ME. What an amazing customer friendly set up they have. It should be a MODEL for US companies. To take care of the customer and their item(s) they purchased.

Every fall I send in the reels I use and cherish the most (all makes) back to the factory for service, whether there is a problem or not. I want my stuff to work right next season. I hate problems mid season. And shimano has done a great job and on the high end stuff there has never been a charge to me. The every day reels I normally give to a local dealer who really knows what he is doing and charges a fair rate of 15 bucks per reel + parts.

Well, because I have been so happy with the factory service in the past, this year I sent all my shimno reels in to the factory service center in CA...the really good ones AND the standard gear as well.

Well I posted on the accurate reel thread what they did on my stellas...(gave me a new one @ no charge and cleaned and repaired the others for no charge) but I was expecting a significant fee on the other lower end reels. Some had seen some hard core use but still worked OK, I just wanted to see what they would do for me.

2 reels **replaced** with NEW for 25 bucks (thunnus!!) (these are $230 new) and they gave me my old spool back to boot! so my net was a extra spool and a new reel for 25 bucks! Spools cost more then that!

All the others (3 bait runners, and a stratic, and a look and work like new now and had major stuff replaced, handles, gears, bearings, ect the largest charge per reel was 12 bucks. Now it sounds like I don't take care of my stuff but I do, my stuff is looked after each season. They upgraded all the bearings with the latest version of the bearing and wrote a note that I should only use shimano grease with these reels.

But I tell you from now on all I will buy will be shimano reels (spin and conv. ) and it all goes back each and every year. Fabulous customer oriented company IMO. :happy: